Sunday, June 26, 2011

The Power of Advertising (To lose customers).

I'll leave the cute storytelling aside for today, I just want to rant about something quickly.

Isn't this CUTE?! What a great idea! And that sofa looks so comfortable!

"Yes", "No", and "So what?"

I call this 'Piranha Advertising', and it works like this: You get a team of creatives together to conceptualise your new campaign. These people are very clever, and think to a brief for a living.

"So what sucks about tram stops the most?" "Oh- I hate those hard seats they have in there." "Let's put a sofa in there!" "YES! And the sofa can reflect the comfort and security you will feeling dealing with ING direct!" "Oh yeah, we're gonna win an award for this for sure!" "Let's make sure the sofa is the right shade of orange to tie in with ING's corporate identity." "Yeah, and let's bolt that fucker down so poor people can't steal it".

See how clever they are?

Not very-. In a town the size of Melbourne, complete strangers aren't likely to feel comfortable sharing a 2-seater sofa with a complete stranger first thing in the morning while on their way to work. And I'm sure everyone else who is missing out on sitting down will be wondering why Yarra Trams let an unrelated corporate entity rip out the much more accomodating seating that was there, so Yarra Trams could make more money, but their customers just get inconvenienced. A lot like those full tram ads that cover all the windows, so tourists who want to take photos can't. Again, because Yarra Trams have sold the window space to a corporate entity. But wait- I thought WE paid for a seat with a view, when we purchased a tram ticket? Who's "fare evading" now?

I call it piranha advertising for one reason. While retaining the services of creatives, and coming up with clever campaigns that grab your attention, and spending thousands and thousands of dollars to decorate a tram stop might be no big deal to ING, all it does to people who think is, it jumps up and bites them in the ass.

Because if they can spend all that money on nothing much, on just a simple ad, where does that money come from?

YOU.

And if they can waste all that money of yours on a campaign, that suggests that they have a great deal of (your) money to throw around on expensive ad campaigns. And if they have a lot of money for that, it means they have a lot of YOUR money for that.

So what?

It means they're charging you too much. It means the profits they derive from the service they provide, are inflated to the point they can pretty much throw them around on zany ideas that could have been even more effectively carried out and much cheaper, had they used better creatives (ie: a simple video aimed at maximum virality).

ING are saying "Look at how much money we have, therefore how successful we are", when really it means "Look how much we're ripping you off."

It's not accepted generally to sell the same thing twice, to two different buyers. If you buy a house with a view, then the realtor sells the windows to a billboard company, someone is paying a big fine.

But when you buy a tram ticket, and if you're one of the first 4 people to arrive at a stop, you should expect to be able to sit down, and you should expect to see clearly out of the tram windows. How are you meant to see your stop sometimes, when the windows are covered in ads, and it's after dark?

These things shouldn't be sold, because we have already paid for them- with our tickets. Let's not get into how Yarra Trams spends hundreds of thousands of dollars a year with ads demonising fare evaders as they call them. Again, Piranha advertising! They can afford to blow that much money on ads telling people what we all already know, then they're MAKING TOO MUCH MONEY ALREADY.

Ultimately, these ads have the reverse affect for their creators, as public sentiment slowly rises, to the point where people hate the corporation, have no sympathy for the corporation, actively seek to do business with anyone else but that corporation.

They're spending money to make people go some place else.

Looks like the clever creatives at Saatchi and Saatchi or wherever else didn't think of that...

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About Me

This is basically the story of quite a tortured personality, employing sarcasm and filthy language to blind you to the fact he is actually trying to fool you into thinking more like him. All seemingly innoccuous stories are laden with deeper meaning, so you can enjoy this blog around the campfire, the lecture theatre, or the dinner table. Bon appetit!